


The King

by EAI



Series: COLDFLASHWEEK2017B [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Blood and Gore, Coldflashweek2017B, Dark Barry Allen, FBI!Len, M/M, Minor Character Death, Morally Ambiguous Character, Other characters implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 01:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12400404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EAI/pseuds/EAI
Summary: For a belated ColdFlashWeek2017B - Rogue Barry/Cop LenBarry wants to play a game with him, but all moves and plans come with an absolute price.





	The King

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language, but do enjoy! :D

 

 

 

—commercial buildings and high-rises close by; civilians scatter all around, and cars driving and honking, Len has to be thrice as careful and play his cards right when he’s out in the open like this. Especially when dealing with a certain Rogue Speedster. They have clashed a number of times, always as the matter of fact, battling wits and discovering agendas and plans so clandestine. The Rogue Speedster is the world’s enemy, a meta-human terrorist, who takes the greatest pleasure in hunting and executing countless of innocent lives just for the sake of mere entertainment. And he never works alone, **Bartholomew Henry Allen** is never alone, as there are battalions of like-minded and soldiers and mercenaries in rapport under him.

It irks Len to see the man lounging so frivolously, dressed like a pacifist, watching and observing the disinterest crowd with interest. So he swallows down his anger and proceeds with his plan. He will win, he will bring Allen down. But what has transpired on their chessboard, tells him another story. Len has lost two of his pawns and his knight to Allen’s bishops. And Allen, half of his pawns and a castle to Len’s queen.

“I’ll make a deal with you, babe. But only if you play this game with me. I don’t want anybody else as my opponent. I want only you,” Allen says, curving a smile, hazel eyes studying their chessboard. “If I lose, I will wholeheartedly surrender myself and my crew to the FBI and Waller. But if you lose, I’ll take you. Simple as that.”

“So take me, leave them alone.”

He laughs. “You don’t understand, Lenny, that’s not how this game works. That’ll be too easy, too boring. A cinch like a snap of my fingers. You have to play along, and I’m sure it’ll be fun. Like a foreplay between you and me.”

Len raises his eyes to the Rogue Speedster sitting in front of him, who is sporting a beard looking like a man who has something precious stolen from him. And Len knows what. Instead, he moves his knight to eliminate Allen’s queen. “All right, I’ll play. But before we go on any further, that bit about taking me? Care to expound on that?”

Then Allen retaliates by placing his castle three steps away from Len’s king, cornering the piece with a pawn and a bishop – _check-fucking-mate_ – before he stands with a smirk blooming on his face. “Figure it out yourself, baby. I’ll be **watching**.”

He clicks his tongue, winking at him before an ear-piercing shot disrupts the peace and screams shortly follow. Len, who has dropped to the ground to take cover, pales when he spots a grief-stricken wife in the midst of the panic, cradling and hunching over her already dead husband.

The game has begun, and Allen is nowhere to be found.

Len eventually has Allen’s attack patterns all figured out. He uncovers three bombings; manage to stop them before they detonate, captures Allen’s best man and ambushes some of his hideouts and ports, and arrests his goons. Len thinks he will win, he has the upper-hand in this game, and he is indeed winning – for a short period. This is a game of chance and survival after all, Central City is a maze and a carnage, Len’s battlefield and Allen’s personal playground where things tend to venture out of Len’s control.

As a consequence – Allen has Lisa murdered, mailing her severed head so mercilessly to his doorstep with a note saying, _‘you have a very good taste in music, and I’m loving the tune, what’s your next muse?’_

This is Allen’s plan all along, to cut off Len’s absolute weakness where it will hurt him the most so absolutely. And Allen does it so cruelly. In the days that follow, Len’s anger makes him sloppy during the investigation and when he’s pulling off his jobs, creating problems after problems in which he can’t seem to stop.

Hartley is next, tortured to death.

Then the Mardon brothers, kidnapped and thrown out from a 34th floor high-rise.

Roy and Jesse, a week later, chopped to pieces.

Scudder and his fiancée, forced into a meat grinder.

Then Mick, his best friend. His anchor. His brother. Skinned from his flesh and bones.

People die every single day, and that is a fact, but in this current twisted reality – parents and sons and daughters die every single hour and Len is helpless to stop Allen’s ascension to power. Central City, a once beautiful place, and the cities nearby are now barren and abandoned, leaving this haunted, uncontrolled section of the world. He brings himself to Allen’s lair, ignoring whistles and cheers and calls from Allen’s undying crew, willing to surrender his future.

“—one condition, let me bury my sister.”

Allen, who is sitting cross-legged on top of his table sans his jacket and shirt, grins at him. “For you, anything. But I think I’ll keep a token of her for myself. Call it a well-deserved prize.”

“Haven’t you had enough?!”

Len roars when Barry shows him Lisa’s eyeball, locked in a mason jar, before two muscle-heads seize him by his arms and force him down to kneel on his knees. He struggles, but this is his last act of courage. He will never let anyone defile his sister even in death. “She never did anything to you! It was all me, you wanted only me to play your games and I did! I’ll give you m-my eyes, so just please—give her back to me…!”

Allen throws himself to stand upright then, walking over to Len’s begging form before he squats in front of him.

“This game we’re playing? Is to keep you by, Len. Your sister’s eye is the only leverage I have on you, because I know you’ll never leave this world without burning your loved ones to ashes first.” He cradles Len’s face so gently that it’s terribly unbecoming of him.

“If you accept me, I’ll show you my point of view. I’ll reveal to you the world who has failed to save you and your sister. If you accept me, Len, I’m never going to let you suffer again. I’ll let you bury Lisa, and all your friends. I’ll take you as my _Queen_ , but you’ll have to treat me as your _King_.”

 

 

 


End file.
